Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

0 the thousands of kids across the United States who race motocross and hope to make it into one of the "Big Four" 18wheelers as a factory-salaried rider one day, 22-year-old Tennessee native Nathan Ramsey personifies "the dream." Ramsey, who started in the sport at the relatively late age of 14, has managed to enter the pantheon of the factory rider through hard work, tenacity and trong, consistent results as a privateer. Beginning his amateur career as a humble, grass-roots local rider, Ramsey backed by his family - patiently toiled away at the regional level before venturing out to the big, high-profile amateur races. Shortly thereafter, he made the leap into the professional ranks. Upon his arrival, Ramsey continued to develop and improve to the point where he was ready to hit the AMA East Region 125cc Supercross series. It was from tha t point that Ramsey was "discovered." Putting together a string of impressive rides, which resulted in a third place in the AMA East Region points standings, Ramsey caught the eye of a number of team managers both factory and support - and the "buzz" about the young Tennessee rider hit the ent!;\Usiast press. It wasn't long after that Ramsey started to entertain offers from a number of support teams. After coming to terms in the form of a verbal agreement with the Honda satellite team Primal Impulse, Ramsey received an offer to ride for the American Suzuki factory team. Still not in possession of a formal contract from Primal Impulse, Ramsey signed on with Roger DeCoster's new and improved Suzuki squad. He then packed his bags and headed to California in order to set up shop and compete in the AMA 125cc West Region Supercross Series. After a cautious and reserved start no doubt overwhelmed by his intimjdating new corporate surroundings - Ramsey has been on the gas. In fact, if not for a miscue in the late stages of the race, Ramsey was well on his way to capturing his first career su percross victory at the Seattle Kingdome. Undaunted, the new recruit is. eager to prove his worth to his new employer - and his fans. Although new to the factory life, and perhaps sometl"ling of an unknown entity to American spectators, Nathan Ram~ sey is a rider with a bright future. In an 1b effort to find out more about the. only factory rider ever to have come out of Chattanooga, Tennessee, we got the young Mr. Ramsey on the phone and asked him to bare his soul to Cycle News. A number of people started to get wind of your name about the midway point of the 1996 season. However, a number of fans out there may not know a lot about you. Can you give us the Nathan Ramsey story? I'm 22 and I'm from Chatanooga, Tennessee. I pretty much grew up there and I started racing when I was 14. I like basketball a lot and tennis, but I guess, more than anything, I'm just an average guy (laughter). You started racing relatively late, didn't you? Yes, I started racing later than a lot of guys did, which is a bit of a disadvantage, but I guess it's a little bit of an advantage. too. If you start when you are 5 years old, you can end up burned out like a number of riders are. But if you start later, like I did, you're not burned out, but I may not have the same amount of experience that some riders have. However, I fe·el like I've made up a lot of ground - on most of the riders anyway. That's a good p~int, but I guess when you get down to it, no matter how hard you go at it, it's talent that is going to get you to the level you're at now. Yeah, yeah. I guess that has a lot to do with it as well. How did you end up in the sport? Let's ee. I always liked motorcycles and I always trail rode and stuff, and I always wanted to race, but I guess my brother really got me into it because he started racing first, and I went to watch him race and thought, "Wow, that's cool, I'd really like to do that." From then on, we did it as a family, me and my brother and my mom and dad, we just grew with it as a family, you knqw? We just went from there.

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